11 Nov 2013

Lobatse MP and also leader of the Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) in Parliament, Mr Nehemiah Modubule, has thanked President Lt Gen. Seretse Khama Ian Khama for maintaining the tradition of providing a comprehensive review of the state of the nation. 

Responding to President Khama’s State-of-the-Nation Address in Parliament on Thursday, Mr Modubule said this was the opportunity for the President to help the nation recall plans that were slated for the past performance year.

This address, he said “give us a variance report on planned activities against their actual implementation and attendant outcomes, appraise us of challenges and associated carry-over items to the next performance year with notes on what would be improved to get things done.”

However, Mr Modubule said President Khama’s speech avoided topical issues that emerged during the year under review.  Such issues, he said, included Botswana Development Corporation, Botswana Meat Commission, Botswana Power Corporation and airports. He said President Khama’s speech was similar to all the previous ones with a few updates. 

“No convincing and compelling strategy was mentioned to achieve clear objectives. There was only emphasis on poverty-eradication,” he said.  He advised that government needed to focus on a few more key objectives such as; creating wealth for the country and its people, broadening participation of ordinary people in economic mainstream and finding creative ways of expanding economic engines for growth.

When jobs had been created in a performance year, Mr Modubule said, the nation needed to be updated on how many eligible people were still without jobs and how many people lost jobs within the same period. Poverty eradication projects, he said also needed to be looked at, not only in terms of inputs, but outputs as well and a note on sustainability. 

For example, Mr Modubule said “when P1.1 billion has cumulatively been collected as alcohol levy, we have to know cumulative annual collections to determine the reality of the assertion that progress is being made on alcohol abuse.” 

The Lobatse MP said whilst President Khama celebrated the accumulation of funds from the alcohol levy, he should also be mindful of those who were impoverished by the increment of the levy.  “Families of these alcohol drinkers are heavily hit. Another variable that need to be considered here is how during the same period the nation has been visited by drug and substance abuse,” he added.

While he also thanked President Khama for his report on e-government, Mr Modubule said he wondered “when the Independent Electoral Commission will plunge on this bandwagon so that, especially at this stage, citizens in the diaspora could cast their votes in 2014, as well as public servants who  would be on duty.” Ends